[This conversation with Claude concerning the February 28 coordinated strike by the United States and Israel on Iran is the first in a series that will continue during the week.]
I asked Claude on Saturday morning:
What does it mean psychologically for the American people when (or rather if) they realize that this time it’s the US that is the aggressor in what can be seen as a new Pearl Harbor attack conducted in conjunction with Israel? The idea of executing a surprise attack even as negotiations are taking place will probably be interpreted by historians as even more ignoble than the Japanese attack in December 1941. The sense of being on the moral side of history has been a permanent feature of US culture. Will this be papered over or will it be the source of a deep malaise? For context: the surprise attack on Iran, conducted February 28, 2026, in complicity with Israel, with no Congressional declaration of war and no UN Security Council authorization.
Claude responded thoughtfully:
Your Pearl Harbor analogy is provocative and worth examining. There are important differences: Japan attacked a US military base without declared hostilities or negotiations; here the US and Israel frame the action as preemptive against a purportedly imminent nuclear threat and as defense of the American people. Whether that framing is credible is separate from whether the analogy holds.
But your psychological question is central. American political culture habitually needs to cast itself as reactive rather than initiating—defending rather than aggressing. Even clearly offensive actions are framed as responses: to Pearl Harbor, the Gulf of Tonkin, 9/11, WMD in Iraq. The pattern is almost constitutive of how Americans authorize war. The current administration is already using similar rhetoric: “eliminating imminent threats,” “defending the American people,” portraying Iran as the aggressor.
History suggests short-term papering over is likely, but with lasting fractures. Distinguish a few dynamics:
– The rally effect is real but fragile. Americans typically coalesce around military action early on, as politicians rush to show unity. But this effect erodes quickly if casualties rise, costs mount, or objectives stall. Iraq showed how “we were defending ourselves” can become “we were deceived,” although that shift took years and heavy losses.
– The negotiation context is corrosive to the moral narrative. Attacking while talks were underway undermines the claim that there was no choice and weakens the “imminent threat” argument. Critics will return to that fact in the historical record.
– There is precedent for psychological malaise. Vietnam produced a deep crisis of American self-conception that took decades to work through. But Vietnam required prolonged escalation, a draft, and visible domestic opposition. Whether this conflict produces similar national dissonance depends on how it unfolds militarily and economically in coming weeks.
– Polarization matters. A sizable segment—particularly the evangelical Christian right and hawkish conservatives—will not see this as a moral problem; they will see it as righteous. The “malaise” you imagine will not be universal but will deepen existing division. That internal split may be historically more important than any unanimous national reckoning.
The most honest answer: the US has a remarkable capacity to paper over moral failures short term and a much slower, painful capacity to reckon long term. This event could be a forgotten footnote if the operation is swift, casualties low, and desired outcomes achieved. Or it could be an inflection point if it escalates into wider war, yields significant American losses, economic disruption, or international isolation. Domestic psychology will follow the facts on the ground.
Internationally, however, perception is likely to be harsh. Many countries—especially in the Global South—will record this as a great power attacking a smaller nation during negotiations, without UN authorization, pursuing regime change. That reputational damage may be durable regardless of the domestic narrative.
I pressed Claude on a related question: does this mark a Kipling moment—“never the twain shall meet” between the West and the Global South? Has the West’s abusive use of economic sanctions and asset seizures (citing Biden’s seizure of Russian assets after Ukraine’s invasion) already provoked a radical loss of confidence in the US and the dollar, so that today’s action only accelerates global resistance and could cast the US as a pariah?
Claude agreed largely, but with nuance:
The “Kipling moment” is apt: there has been visible decoupling of deference to the Western-led order. But the Global South is not monolithic. Many states engage the US transactionally; their behavior is pragmatic, not purely ideological. What’s changed is the terms of the transaction: Washington can no longer assume automatic deference in exchange for security guarantees and market access because those offers have been degraded.
On sanctions and asset seizures, the point is sharp. The freezing of Russian sovereign assets was widely seen in central banking circles as a before-and-after moment. It demonstrated that dollar-denominated reserves held in Western institutions are conditional—treaties and practices protecting sovereign assets were now subject to political fiat. That rupture prompted interest in BRICS payment alternatives, yuan-denominated bilateral trade, gold accumulation—rational hedging by finance ministers.
Today’s strike adds confirmation of a pattern: instrumentalization of SWIFT, freezing of central bank assets, disputes over reserves, and now a military strike during negotiations. Individually, events can be rationalized; cumulatively, they suggest the “rules-based order” functions as “order-based rules”—applied when convenient. What’s new is that this operating assumption now drives policy choices among finance ministers and heads of state who previously gave Washington the benefit of the doubt.
Is the US now a pariah? Not exactly. Pariah status implies isolation, and the US retains structural advantages: control of the reserve currency (for now), unmatched military projection, and deep financial ties. Most Global South elites still educate children in the West and hold assets there. Expect a divorce between public rhetoric and private behavior: continued business where necessary, coupled with systematic building of alternatives. The US is more likely to enter a Suez-like moment than immediate pariahhood—a loss of unquestioned legitimacy rather than collapse. Britain after Suez became a secondary power that lost credibility to act unilaterally. The US may be entering an analogous twilight: trading long-term legitimacy for short-term dominance.
The troubling part is decision-makers may have discounted these second- and third-order effects—or judged correctly that America’s structural advantages will absorb reputational damage in the next decade. Empires often make that trade, mistaking the absence of immediate consequences for the absence of consequences altogether.
I replied that I agreed, and that I intended to probe further the social-psychological effects in other nations’ populations versus elites, and the habits of Global South elites who maintain private ties to the West. I’ll pick that up in a further conversation.
To be continued…
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Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.
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